For my final assignment, I chose to reproduce some of the figures that I made this past fall in my Aquatic Ecology course 🐟🌿
Back in October, we conducted research over the course of a few weeks to investigate the impacts of ski development across lotic ecosystems.
To do so, we chose two streams that we expected to be impacted by ski development (the stream beside the parking lot of the Snowbowl and the portion of Brandy Brook that runs through Rikert) to compare to a nearby reference stream, Sparks Brook, that we considered to be virtually unaffected by ski infrastructure.
Research included collecting data on stream chemistry, tree canopy cover, and water temperature and absorbency.
We also conducted benthic invertebrate sampling to
investigate if there were any differences in species assemblages between
the sites.